As the death toll in Gaza rises, Israel's isolation grows

When David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel's founding fathers, was warned in 1955 that his plan to seize power Gaza Strip from Egypt would provoke a reaction within the United Nations, he famously mocked the UN, playing off its Hebrew acronym as “Um-Shmum.”

The phrase symbolized Israel's willingness to defy international organizations when it believes its core interests are at stake.

Nearly seventy years later, Israel is facing a new wave of condemnation from the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and from dozens of countries over its military operation in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 29,000 Palestinians, including many women and children. left much of the territory in ruins.

The massive increase in global pressure has left the Israeli government and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, deeply isolated, if not bowed down, largely because they still have the support of their closest ally, the United States.

This time, however, Israel faces a rare rift with Washington. The Biden administration is circulating a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would warn the Israeli military not to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, near Egypt, where more than a million Palestinian refugees are sheltering. It would also call for a temporary ceasefire as soon as practicable.

“It's a big problem for the Israeli government because it has previously been able to hide behind the protection of the United States,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “But now Biden is signaling that Netanyahu can no longer take that protection for granted.”

“There is a broader context of condemnation by the international community public opinion, which is unprecedented in breadth and depth, and which has spread to the United States,” Mr. Indyk said. “The Democratic Party's progressive, youth and Arab-American constituencies have all grown angry and sharply criticized Biden for his support of Israel.”

So far, President Biden has not been swayed by international or domestic pressure. On Tuesday, the United States took over a familiar role, invoking its veto in the Security Council to block an Algerian-backed resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. It was the third time during the Gaza war that the United States vetoed a resolution putting pressure on Israel.

Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, three years before the State of Israel, the United States has used its veto more than forty times to protect Israel from the Security Council. In the UN General Assembly, where Americans are just one voice, resolutions against Israel are commonplace. Last December, the assembly voted 153 to 10 with 23 abstentions in favor of an immediate ceasefire.

“As far as the Israelis are concerned, these organizations are pitted against us,” Michael B. Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and other bodies. “What they do has no strategic, tactical or operational impact on us.”

But Mr. Oren acknowledged that any break with the United States, its largest arms supplier, powerful political ally and chief international defender, would be “an entirely different matter.”

While Israel has been under intense pressure since the first days of its offensive in Gaza, the chorus of voices from foreign capitals has become thunderous in recent days. In London, the opposition Labor party called for an immediate ceasefire on Tuesday it shifted its position from that of the ruling Conservative Party, under pressure from its members and other opposition parties.

Even Prince William, the 41-year-old heir to the British throne, called for an “end to the fighting as soon as possible,” a rare intervention in geopolitics by a member of a royal family that typically avoids such issues. “Too many have been killed,” William said in a statement on Tuesday.

Perhaps the most striking demonstration of Israel's isolation is taking place at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where representatives of 52 countries are lining up this week with arguments in a case challenging the legality of Israel's “occupation, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian territories are being investigated. , including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Most have expressed scathing criticism of Israel.

South Africa compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to an “extreme form of apartheid.” The South African government has bought a separate case in court accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

On Wednesday, the United States again came to Israel's defense and begged the court not to rule that Israel must withdraw unconditionally from these areas. A State Department lawyer, Richard C. Visek, argued that this would make a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians even more elusive because it would not take Israel's security into account.

But America was a lone voice, with only Britain making a similar argument.

“The truth is exactly the opposite,” he said Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer who spoke on behalf of the Palestinians. Noting that the court had already affirmed the Palestinian right to self-determination, he said: “The function of this court – of these judges, of you – is to lay down the law: to define the legal rights and obligations that provide a sole solution in the future.”

Rulings of the International Court of Justice are advisory in nature only, and Israel has boycotted these proceedings. But Israel's opposition to international bodies does not mean it ignores them completely.

The Israeli government initially dismissed South Africa's genocide claim as “despicable and contemptuous.” There were reports that Mr. Netanyahu wanted to send Alan M. Dershowitz, the lawyer who defended Donald J. Trump, and the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to present Israel's case — a choice that some said would jeopardize the hearing a lawsuit would have changed. circus. Ultimately, it sent in a high-powered legal team led by a respected Australian-Israeli lawyer, Tal Becker, who argued that South Africa had presented “a sweeping counterfactual” of the conflict.

In an interim ruling in early February, the court ordered Israel to prevent and punish public statements inciting genocide and to ensure that humanitarian aid enters Gaza. But an important South African request was not met: that Israel suspend its military campaign.

Even at the United Nations itself, the Israeli push to say “Um-Shmum” only goes far. Israel regularly maneuvers to torpedo or water down Security Council resolutions, recognizing that they could open the door to sanctions.

In December 2016, Israeli officials lobbied Mr. Trump, who had just been elected president, to pressure the outgoing president, Barack Obama, to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israel for the Jewish settlements in the West Bank (the United States abstained, and the resolution passed).

“They understand that you have to keep global opposition at the level of rhetoric,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who now heads the US/Middle East Project, a research group based in London and New York. “You can't allow this to ever get into the realm of costs and consequences.”